Dos Pueblos’ Scott Mahan looks to pass around defender Dominic Brown. Mahan was one of eight Chargers to score in Thursday’s CIF match. (Presidio Sports Photo)
Blake Parrish scored six times and the Dos Pueblos defense held Chaparral scoreless for much of the first half as the third-seeded Chargers advanced into the CIF-ss Division 2 quarterfinals with a 17-6 victory over the visiting Pumas on Thursday afternoon.
Dos Pueblos (22-7) built an 11-0 lead before Chaparral scored its first goal with 40 seconds to go before halftime.
“The plan really was to just focus on defense to start the game and we held that shutout for awhile,” said Dos Pueblos head coach Chris Parrish. “It felt good. I had to rotate a lot of guys in and they were playing good defense as well.”
Dos Pueblos played three players at the goalkeeper position alone as Emil Huebner gave way to Kyle Krutenat and then Ben Cable in the second half.
“There’s a lot of names that don’t get on the score sheet that contributed today,” Parrish said.
Eight different players did find the scoring column, with Blake Parrish leading the way. Scott Mahan recorded a hat trick while Quinn Peacock and Kelly Reynolds added a pair of goals each. Three of Parrish’s game-high six goals came in the first quarter as DP took a 5-0 lead.
The defensive stops allowed DP to frequently use its superior speed on the counterattack. Most of DP’s scoring came on easy looks in transition.
“That’s pretty typical in water polo games where the defense is working ,” Parrish said. “We generated a lot of offense on the counterattack and made it look easy.”
After Chaparral’s Garrison White cracked the shutout late in the second period, Jack Donnelly scored again for the Pumas before halftime. Chaparral scored twice in the third and twice more in the fourth. Dos Pueblos’ biggest lead was 17-5.
The No. 3 Chargers will travel to No. 6 Foothill on Saturday for their quarterfinal match. The two teams played once already this season, with Dos Pueblos winning 8-5 at the South Coast Tournament.
“I feel like because we played them earlier in the season and had a three-goal victory over them that we’re setting ourselves up maybe to be over-confident on the player side, and for them to kind of know what we like to do, that makes me a little nervous,” Parrish said. “Going to their pool to have to play against a very talented and hungry team.”?
BOX SCORE
Chaparral 0 2 2 2 – 6
Dos Pueblos 5 6 3 3 – 17DP Goals – Parrish 6, Mahan 3, Peacock 2, Reynolds 2, Gustason, Elliott , Brown, Young
CH Goals – Moore 2, Morin, Donelly, Colas, White
